NJ Education Report

Vince Giordano, NJEA’s Executive Director, is still getting slammed for a thoughtless comment he made on the radio in response to a question about the Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA). When asked why poor kids stuck in rotten schools shouldn’t be able to have educational options beyond the failing schools in their neighborhoods, Giordano replied, “Well, life’s not fair and I’m sorry about that.”

The NJ GOP knew a gift when they saw it, so yesterday they released this youtube video, which widens the target beyond Giordano’s insensitivity (he looks somehow a bit Uncle Fester-ish in his discomfort: you almost feel sorry for the guy) to the union’s reality-impaired insistence that NJ is closing the achievement gap between poor and rich kids.

In response to the GOP video, a group closely associated with NJEA called “Defend NJ Public Education” is tweeting a link to a list that is supposed to prove that NJEA is, like white on rice, all over the achievement gap. Unfortunately the list of papers intended to demonstrate the union’s awareness also includes head-scratchers like NJEA President Barbara Keshishian’s statement that NJ’s “so-called ‘achievement gap’ between white and black students in the state’s urban districts is a classic straw man. The administration has acknowledged the documented successes of the vast majority of New Jersey’s public schools, because the evidence of our success is irrefutable.”

So we’re still spinning in the circle, headed back to Comm. Cerf’s angry response last week:

The NJEA bases their argument on changes in NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores between 1992 and 2011, which they contend proves that the achievement gap is narrowing in New Jersey. However, NAEP researchers consistently reinforce that the testing conditions in 1992 do now allow meaningful companion to later results because in the early years of testing students were not permitted accommodations in testing procedures. Because of these differences in methodology, direct comparisons between 1992 and 2011 are irresponsible and incomplete.

Using the state’s most recent NAEP scores, however, there are some startling statistics. New Jersey ranks between 2nd and 4th in overall attainment on four tests that NAEP offers – 4th and 8th grade language arts and math. This is unquestionably a remarkable achievement, and one for which we owe a debt of gratitude to our educators across the state.

But as the disaggregation of data required by No Child Left Behind demonstrates, high levels of overall achievement do not mean that every subgroup and every student is succeeding equally. In fact, there is only one state that has a higher gap between the proficiency levels of low- and high-income students in 8th grade reading – Alaska.

And the story’s not dying. Here’s the Daily Journal’s editorial today, which pivots off Giordano’s “pearl of wisdom:”

Of course, life isn’t fair. But it is a bedrock principle of American democracy that education is one way to level the playing field. The NJEA, which never ceases to proclaim that its primary mission is “for our children” (even when it ardently lobbies for programs, designed — at least in the eyes of most people — primarily to feather the nests of their own members) apparently has a vice president perfectly willing to throw poor kids under the bus of failing schools.

There may be a case to be made against vouchers, but “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” is not it.

There are some that argue that NJEA’s resentment towards the OSA is due to the fact that private and parochial schools don’t hire NJEA members. So what if we offered vouchers to public schools, a spin on the highly-touted Interdistrict Public School Choice Program? The IPSCP allows public schools with empty seats to volunteer to accept kids from outside district boundaries. What if it wasn’t voluntary? It’s one state school system, right? What if high-performing public schools were required to open up any empty seats to kids stuck in low-performing districts? The host schools would receive the cost per pupil – a voucher, if you will – and we start thinking about our school infrastructure as not segregated by zip code but part of a shared mission to provide thorough and efficient education to all kids.

Yeah, yeah, it’s a stretch, especially given Jersey’s slavish adherence to home rule and local control. But, somehow, “life isn’t fair” doesn’t cut it.